


Misery, Loneliness, Hope

by theLoyalRoyalGuard



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Compliant, Cassian Andor-centric, Gen, Hope
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-26 19:14:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17147513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theLoyalRoyalGuard/pseuds/theLoyalRoyalGuard
Summary: A meditation on three aspects of Cassian Andor.





	Misery, Loneliness, Hope

Misery is a stubborn companion. 

It digs its claws in and holds on, becomes a habit so ingrained Cassian stops noticing it. He becomes unwilling, unable, even to comprehend trying to change it. One day, a wise man will tell him he carries his prison with him wherever he goes, but he will not understand, because Cassian is not wise. And he has not yet met that man. 

Cassian knows many things. He speaks six languages. He can disassemble, clean, replace and load any make and model of blaster he is given with a blindfold on. He once reprogrammed an Imperial droid to be his best - his only - friend. But he does not know he is unhappy, because he no longer remembers what it's like to be anything else.

On a remote planet in the Outer Rim, he waits, he picks his moment. His mark is a Twi'lek woman, a wealthy tycoon with connections to the Empire. Her lekku glitter with woven wires of precious metals and gems. Her bodyguards scan the streets, but they don't look up. No one ever bothers to look up, which is exactly why Cassian always looks up. He aims. She is going back to her hotel, to her family who will miss her when she's gone. He fires.

By the time her bodyguards finally look up, he is gone. They will never find him. They do not know where to look.

He tells himself he feels nothing now.

Misery is a callus grown thick and hard over old wounds. It is hiding masquerading as healing.

–

Loneliness is a cage without doors. It chokes him at night and cloaks him in the day. No one knows how to get in, and he does not know how to get out. He spends most of his time alone, and tells himself it's better that way. Better not to get attached to people.

People have a tendency to die. Besides, if they're not the ones who die, some day he will, and if someone ever cared about him, he would hate to hurt them when he finally doesn't come back. He is quite sure that, one day, he will not come back. The prospect holds no horror for him. He has been ready to sacrifice himself since he was a child, for so long he doesn't know what it's like not to be ready to die. Just as he does not know that he is unhappy, he does not know that he is afraid.

Or perhaps he has truly ceased to be afraid. He prefers that version.

But loneliness is the one he fights, the bars he struggles against. Because Cassian cares, more than anything in the galaxy, he cares so much it consumes him. The Rebellion owns him, his every thought and breath for twenty years. He cares about the droid, too. The maddeningly literal, terrifyingly honest droid. They are the only ones who will put up with each other. 

So he often pats the droid on the chassis, even when Kay asks him why - he has no touch receptors on his chassis, and he is not programmed to understand organic markers of affection - and he even hugged him once. He does not explain that he is the one with touch receptors, that even cold titanium is better than touching no one at all.

Loneliness is a code he rewrites every day. It is the equivalent of striking himself so no one else can.

–

Hope is the guiding star he follows through the darkness. He fights for it, believes in it, clings to it when there is nothing else left. He believes in the Force, too, but it is hope he has faith in. Hope that keeps him going. Maybe hope and the Force are the same thing. 

His life is built on hope, rebellions are built on hope.

One day, he will meet a woman who will throw his own words back at him and break him out of the prison he doesn't know he carries, but he has not yet met that woman. And by then, it will be too late.


End file.
